Thief of Hearts
by UnmovingGreatLibrary
Summary: Four unrelated one-offs: Marisa commits four different thefts and earns kisses from four different girls.
1. Alice

"Master Spark!"

A hot, dry wind blew whipped Marisa's hair back and threatened to snatch her hat off, but it was nothing compared to the beam of energy in front of her. It eclipsed the rest of the world in light and rainbow stars. It made the very air rumble. Most importantly, it blasted through the formation of dolls that had been advancing on her, sending them tumbling across the ground.

Alice staggered back under this onslaught, shielded by a shimmering magical barrier. Arcs of energy crackled across its surface. A few stars bounced off of it, with a hollow _poing_. As the last of the energy boiled away into glowing wisps, she banished the shield with a flick of her wrist. "You know, Marisa, I suspect that we'd learn more from these sparring sessions if you tried other strategies besides 'shoot a big laser at it.'"

"I mean..." Marisa lowered the mini-hakkero, blowing a lingering puff of smoke from its aperture. "It worked, didn't it?"

"What if you encounter a fight where it isn't appropriate? What will you do then?"

"Hey, I can still do bigger lasers. Kourin says the mini-hakkero'll blow up if I push it too much harder, but I'm pretty sure he's just bluffin'."

"Mmh, I see. Well, regardless..." Alice surveyed their surroundings. Her dolls had been scattered across the clearing, and most of them were still standing back up. Here and there, tiny lances and swords gleamed in the grass. "... I should stop there, I'm afraid. I don't have enough kaolinite on hand to do many repairs."

"Concedin' that you lost, huh?"

"'Making a tactical withdraw,' perhaps. Next time, I'll come prepared to punish you for such excessive attacks." Alice shot Marisa a competitive smirk, then turned to the disarrayed legion of dolls and clapped her hands, rousing them to attention. "That's it for tonight, everyone. Thank you for your performance, as always. Please gather your weapons and any lost body parts, and—you, the Shanghai three from the left. Your hair is on fire. Yes, there you go."

Marisa watched with idle curiosity as the dolls shuffled up to present themselves. "So, uh. Same time next week?"

"It's a date."

With a final, teasing glance, Alice took into the air. The dolls floated up behind her, flanking her in a v-shaped formation. Within seconds, they'd disappeared past the treetops.

Marisa yawned and stretched, working some soreness out of her muscles. Alice had never been one for firepower, but she knew how to keep an opponent on their toes. She'd be aching for a day or two, but that was fine. It felt like a lazy kind of evening anyway. Maybe she'd stop by the shrine and see what Reimu was up to, or swing by the village for a few drinks. If she could find that shopkeeper who still owed her five thousand yen from a lucky bet on the religious wars, she'd have a heck of a night on her hands, and—

As she strolled across the clearing, her foot bumped into something.

She paused. The grass in the clearing was weedy and unkempt, growing in big tufts. She had to crouch and dig through it, and even then it took a few seconds to spot navy blue cloth peeking through below. Pushing the bulk of the grass aside, she snatched the edge of the cloth and tugged it free.

It was a tiny dress. A tiny dress that was, not surprisingly, wrapped around a doll.

Marisa couldn't even pretend to know all of Alice's different doll designs, but this one looked pretty normal. Its blonde hair was tied up in a tidy bow, and it was clasping a sword in its tiny hand.

Its dress was singed, though, probably from the Master Spark. More importantly, it wasn't moving. She turned it over in her hands and gave it a few pokes, but it didn't react. It didn't take long to find an explanation—it had apparently experienced a pretty rough fall. A hole near the small of its back showed where a rock or something had pierced into its body, and a hairline fracture extended all the way to the doll's shoulder.

A pang of guilt flashed through her head. Sure, Alice was known to stuff her dolls with gunpowder and blow them up, and they didn't seem like much more than magical automata, but they were still _dolls_. They looked like tiny people. Plus, they were cute. That had to count for something.

"Dang. Sorry." Marisa traced the crack with a fingertip, considering her next course of action. She had no idea how to fix this. The appropriate thing would probably be to return it to Alice, but...

But Alice sometimes filled her dolls with gunpowder, which required ingredients that the kappa guarded jealously. And Alice's dolls weren't just ordinary dolls, but magical constructs in their own right. She had no idea how they worked or what was inside of this one, but there was no way she wouldn't learn something by studying it.

She shot a quick glance toward the sky. Alice was long gone.

It still paid to be careful. "Well," she announced to the empty clearing, as she tucked the doll into her pocket. "Guess I'd better hold onto this until I can give it back."

* * *

_THUMP._

Marisa had been too tired to do much after she got home. The sparring match had taken more out of her than she'd expected. She'd gone right to bed, and barely lasted five minutes before she passed out.

Except now, a sound had jolted her awake again.

She pushed herself up to sitting and squinted into the darkness, but no immediate explanation showed itself. The moon was filtering in through her bedroom window. For a few seconds, everything was still, and she wondered if she might have imagined it. Then, another _THUMP_ echoed up the stairwell.

It was the middle of the night, and something was moving around inside her cottage.

Muttering a few choice swears, Marisa snatched up the mini-hakkero from its usual spot on her nightstand, pulled some clothes on, and vaulted out of bed. "Hey!" she shouted down the stairs. "I dunno if ya missed the sign, but the Kirisame Magic Shop is closed!"

_THUMP._

Whatever was causing the noise, it wasn't deterred by her shout. It was the exact same noise she'd heard before, though, and it was happening at regular intervals. It didn't seem like the kind of sound she'd expect if a youkai was looting the place. At the very least, if there was a youkai looting her house, they were very hard of hearing.

She lowered the mini-hakkero a little, and dared to summon a small flame for light as she crept down the stairs. The thumping noise continued. It sounded like it was coming from the front room. As she drew closer, she could make out a bit more depth to it—something was smacking against a window, making it rattle in its frame.

She peeked around the corner, extending the hakkero for a little light. She caught a glimpse of movement. Whatever it was, it was small. It was flying.

It smacked against the window with a _THUMP._

As it drew back, Marisa stoked the flame higher, filling the room with light. She was only a little surprised to see Alice's doll, hovering backward as it prepared for another charge at the window.

"Guess ya weren't busted after all, huh?"

The doll didn't respond. It didn't even seem to notice her presence.

"Still prefer it if you didn't smash my window."

Still ignoring her, the doll kept floating back until it was against the far wall. It leaned forward and set its shoulders. And, it charged at the window. _THUMP._ The window rattled in its frame, and the doll rebounded from the impact.

"Tryin' to get home, huh?"

The doll didn't respond, of course. Marisa reached out for it... and the moment her hand rested on its shoulder, the doll darted away. It spun around and slashed its little sword at her in a warning swipe.

"I'm trying to help you, dummy!"

She made another grab for the doll. This time, it slashed too quickly to avoid. The blade sliced a thin line across the back of her finger—nothing too dangerous, but it still stung like the world's harshest paper cut.

"Ow!" Marisa stuck the finger in her mouth, sucking on it and glaring at the doll. "You really aren't making this easy, you know."

With her good hand, she snatched her hat from its peg near the door, then lunged forward, trying to scoop the doll up in it. The doll darted back, taking up a defensive position behind a stack of books.

"Come...!" Marisa raised the hat overhead, and shoved the books aside with her other hand.

"Here!" She slammed it down.

The doll zipped away, and somehow found the time to slice the brim in the process.

"Alright, shortstuff." Marisa sighed and pulled back for another swipe. "You asked for it."

* * *

_Whap._

_Whap._

_Whap._

It had taken the better part of fifteen minutes, but Marisa had managed to imprison the doll. Barely. The second she'd slammed the hat down over it, it had started slashing its way free. Only now, with a wicker basket over it and a pile of books weighing _that_ down, was she satisfied that it was contained.

She'd miss the hat, but she had a spare laying around somewhere.

The doll barely seemed aware that it was imprisoned. It launched itself straight toward the window, for the thousandth time, and stopped only when it smacked face-first into the wall of the basket.

_Whap._

"Not too bright, are ya?" Not that she expected a response at this point. She crouched down and peeked into the basket anyway.

The doll was rather worse for wear. The chase had taken them all around the room, and it showed. Its dress was covered in a mixture of dust and ground-in dirt. There was a fleck of Marisa's blood staining its apron. Its outfit was still lightly charred from the battle. Sometime during all of its frantic slashing, it had managed to slice a hole in its own dress.

This changed things. The doll didn't seem likely to let her experiment on it like this. Plus, well, it was _moving_. Taking apart a busted doll to figure out how it worked was one thing. She wasn't sure that she was prepared to commit dollicide and dissect her victim.

She got the feeling, though, that if she returned the doll in this state, Alice would never let her hear the end of it.

Marisa sighed. She'd intended this as a fun little project to mess with between real experiments, but it was turning into a lot of work. But, if it'd make Alice happy...

* * *

_Whap._

_Whap._

_Whap._

"Alright, alright, calm down. Almost gotcha home."

No restraint that Marisa had found was more effective than the wicker basket. So, that's where the doll was, trapped beneath the basket, with some kind of outside world road sign slipped beneath it for a floor. Occasionally, the doll managed to ram into the wall of the basket with enough force to almost rip it out of her hands, forcing her to keep a tight grip.

So, rather than risk using a hand to knock, she gave the door to Alice's cottage a few firm thumps with the hell of her shoe. She figured it would get the message across.

It still took a minute or two to get a response. Footsteps approached the door. It swung open, revealing Alice and a small escort of dolls.

"Marisa? This is a surprise. If you—" Alice trailed off, her gaze drifting down to the basket and its tiny prisoner. "... ah. I'd been wondering where you got off to."

"Hey, I didn't steal it or nothin'!" Marisa lied, preemptively defensive. "Just, I found it after our match yesterday, and it was pretty roughed up, so I didn't wanna just turn it loose and hope for the best."

"I'm surprised it let you handle it. If they get lost, they're supposed to go into a defensive stance and try to return to my cottage."

"Hey, this is me we're talking about. I've got a way with the ladies." Marisa shifted her hand to hide her bandage-wrapped finger. "Anyway, here."

She lifted the basket. The doll had been preparing for another dash toward freedom, and showed no awareness that its one obstacle had been removed. It sped forward, out from beneath the basket and into the open air.

It came to a stop in front of Alice, standing at attention and awaiting orders.

Alice stared down at it. The corner of her mouth twitched.

"Marisa... what... what did you...?"

She couldn't hold herself back any longer. Her expression sort of melted. She gave a short, stifled snicker before hiding her lips behind a hand.

Marisa wasn't sure, but it might have been the first time she'd ever heard Alice laugh. She pouted. "What? It isn't _that_ bad, is it?"

She had done her best to make a replacement dress for the doll. It was just that her sewing skills didn't extend very far past patching up tears in her clothes. It was, undeniably, a dress. It had holes for the head and arms, and the part dangling around the doll's legs was definitely some sort of skirt. Or, well, it was skirt-_like_. The whole outfit was baggy, so it was bunched up under the ribbon she'd tied around the doll's waist. Above the ribbon, it was too big altogether, leaving it puffed out around the doll's body. Below, she hadn't bothered to hem the skirt, and its edges were already fraying from the doll's continued escape attempts.

It looked like the kind of outfit one might make if they were trapped on an island with nothing but a pile of old towels and a stapler.

"It's... well, I appreciate the effort," Alice finally said, her voice still shaky from laughing.

"Its old dress was all burnt and stuff from the fight. I mean, I can give it back if you'd rather have that."

"No, no. I like this one. It's very thoughtful of you." Alice leaned in and planted a soft kiss on Marisa's cheek. Marisa's resulting embarrassment only seemed to amuse her more, since Alice was smiling when she pulled back. "Would you like to come in and tell me about it? I think you've more than earned some refreshments."

Marisa lightly rubbed at the spot where Alice had kissed her, but didn't want to be seen dwelling on it for too long. "D'you got those long little cookies?"

"Ladyfingers, yes. I'll have the dolls bring some out." Alice turned and slipped back through the doorway, then glanced teasingly over her shoulder. "After all, it's the least I can do for the heroine of the hour."


	2. Reimu

"Yo, Reimu!"

Marisa's progress into the shrine wasn't as quick as she was accustomed to. Her hands were occupied with a wooden tray, piled high with dango. She had to nudge the door open with an elbow, then ease it wider with a push from her back. A few of the dango slipped, threatening to start an avalanche off the side of the tray. She froze, adjusting the angle until they settled down.

Reimu watched this with an expression somewhere between intrigue and confusion. "That's a lot of dango. What's the occasion?"

"Eh, well, you know." Marisa sighed with relief once she was through the doorway, but still watched her balance until she'd safely rested the tray on the table. "You could say I got 'em on sale."

"... really?"

"Yeah! Somethin' like that. Besides, the important part is..." Marisa popped a dango into her mouth as she spoke. "I broff um tuh sheh wiffoo."

Reimu grabbed one for herself. "Maybe you should finish chewing before you try to talk?"

"Oh, uh. I brought 'em to share with you. … since you're already eating one, didn't you figure that out anyway?"

"It's only common sense," Reimu said, slipping another into her mouth. "It would be rude to bring all this into somebody's house and not offer them any."

"Somehow I get the feelin' you didn't think that far before you started eating. Anyway, tonight's a full moon. Why don't we take 'em outside so we can watch the moon while we eat?"

"Let me guess, you'll be wanting sake too?"

"I mean, if it's moon-viewing, it's basically mandatory, right?"

With a bit of effort, they moved the whole setup to the back of the shrine, where the door opened up to give them a direct view of the moon. Marisa sat the tray of dango in the center, and Reimu reluctantly broke out a bottle from her ever-dwindling sake supply to pour them each a cup.

They each ate a few more dango and sipped at their sake. They made small talk. They were just starting to settle in to a nice, relaxed haze when Reisen's voice came from the front of the building. "Marisa! Marisa, I know you're here!"

Reimu glanced over. "Sounds like you have company."

"A-ah, uh..." Marisa eased herself up to her feet, trying not to make any more noise than necessary. "Think I'll... maybe just slip inside for a bit. If she asks about me—"

"Aha!" Reisen's head poked around the corner of the building. "I knew you had to be heading to the shrine."

"Er, well, yep! Here I am. Good job, you found me. Guess you can head back home now that that's taken care of, huh?"

Reisen wasn't going to be deterred quite so easily. She stepped forward, keeping her red eyes fixated on them the whole time. "Do you mind telling me where you got those dango?"

"Marisa brought them," Reimu said, singling her out with a finger.

Marisa recoiled. "Hey!"

Reisen took another step closer. "Marisa?"

Marisa did have her cover story prepared, of course—she'd gotten the dango at a shop in the village that was having a sale.

Unfortunately, what she said instead was, "I came by Eientei to buy a few things from the doc, but then I saw this tray of dango just sittin' out back with nobody around, so I figured it wouldn't hurt if I took it. It was just goin' to waste otherwise."

She blinked in surprise, a slight flush rising to her cheeks as she realized that she'd blurted out entirely the wrong thing.

Reisen leaned in, with a predatory smirk tugging at her lips. "I see. And have you stolen anything else from Eientei lately?"

"There was a cup of tea sittin' out with the dango and I drank that too." Marisa ended the sentence with a groan, her expression scrunching up as she grew more and more confused by her mouth's betrayal.

"Usually you're a lot better at this," Reimu remarked, taking a sip of her sake.

It seemed like Reisen had gotten her fill of tormenting Marisa for the moment. She leaned back, giving her some breathing space, and crossed her arms. "That's because I put truth serum in those dango. The good stuff. It won't even let you deflect questions or answer with half-truths. … somebody thought it would be funny to switch the labels on half the bottles in my workshop, and I spent all day yesterday sorting them out. It had to be one of the rabbits, so I thought that maybe if I set a trap..."

Marisa reddened. "You really should put up a sign! 'Truth serum dumplings – do not eat!' or somethin'! Otherwise how's an innocent bystander gonna know not to dig in?"

Reisen looked to Reimu, stifling a bit of a grin. "Reimu, would you call Marisa an 'innocent bystander' here?"

"No. There's no way anybody would ever just sit this much food outside and forget it," Reimu said, looking a bit annoyed at her own compulsive urge to blurt out the truth.

"And there you have it." Reisen basked in her triumph for another second or two, then straightened up with a sigh. "... the rabbits will definitely notice if I sat the tray back out like nothing happened, and this month's moon-viewing festival starts soon anyway. Taking them back wouldn't do me any good at this point. You can keep them, but... Marisa, how much would a few plates of dango and a cup of tea cost in the human village?"

Marisa eyed the tray, and once again laid out the full truth. "This much? Eighteen hundred yen or so in the shop by the square. Twelve hundred if you go to that place by the river, but I found a bug in my food there one time."

"And the ingredients for the truth serum cost three thousand. With a small fee for the inconvenience, we can call that an even five thousand yen. Do you have five thousand yen at home?"

"Yes..." Marisa answered, miserably.

"Good. I'll draw up an invoice when I get back." Reisen seemed like her mood had recovered very quickly. Stepping away from the pair, she shot a smirk back over her shoulder. "Enjoy your moon-viewing. It should wear off in a few hours."

With that, she took off into the sky.

Marisa sort of scowled after her, then looked reluctantly back to the dango.

Suddenly she didn't feel quite as hungry.

Reimu seemed to have lost her appetite too.

They sipped at their sake in silence.

"So, uh," Marisa said, weighing each word. "At least the sake's good."

"Mmhm. It's one of the outside world bottles."

The silence returned. After eyeing the dango in annoyance for a few seconds, Marisa ate another. It wasn't like eating more was going to force extra truth out of her.

Reimu reluctantly grabbed another, too. "At least they taste nice."

"Rabbit-pounded stuff's always the best."

"Why did you bring them here, though? If you stole them, I mean. Wouldn't it be safer to just head straight home?"

_First of all, it's not really 'stealing' if the food looks like it's just waiting for ants on someone's back step, and second, no way I could eat all this by myself,_ is what Marisa wanted to say.

What she actually said was, "I mean, yeah, but it's barely been a year since that time you actually died from eatin' old spoiled food. I start worrying about you if I don't drop by with stuff now and then to make sure you're gettin' a solid meal occasionally."

With the truth forcing its way out of her mouth, even Marisa had to take a second or two to realize what she'd just said. By the time she did, it was a bit too late. Flushing deeply, she clamped a hand over her lips, but the words had already escaped.

Reimu looked pretty embarrassed, too, avoiding Marisa's gaze. She waved a hand disarmingly. "I feel kind of guilty when you all go out of your way to take care of me, but the shrine doesn't always make enough money to cover things, and it's hard to get into the village to shop sometimes, so... it actually makes me really happy." She looked more and more incredulous with each word that left her lips, until she finally emitted a strangled little groan at the end.

"A-ah! Uh. Jeez." Marisa practically pried her hand from her mouth, and took a long swig of sake. "... maybe we should just stick to small talk until this stuff wears off."

"That definitely sounds like a good plan," Reimu agreed with a sigh.

They both gave the dango a wide berth just in case, though, sticking to their sake. Marisa wracked her brain for ideas, but couldn't find any guaranteed safe conversation topics. Even 'at least the sake is good' had led to a minor disaster.

"The, uh... moon's pretty tonight?" she said, slowly, carefully, monitoring each word in case it whipped back into her face like a bloodthirsty boomerang.

"I'm glad it isn't too hot," Reimu replied, just as cautiously.

"Yeah... good weather."

The silence returned.

Marisa sighed. "Not bein' able to talk kinda sucks. Maybe I should just head home? That way we can be safe 'til this stuff's out of our systems."

"You really don't have to. I was lonely before you showed up, and it's been pretty boring anyway." Reimu sort of clenched her teeth through the sentence, with an expression like she was trying to control a runaway train. "... a-and it isn't like I could finish all of these dango alone!" she added, half-desperate to move on from the subject.

"Oh, right, the dango. Wouldn't hurt to stick around until they're gone, sure."

Marisa bit the sentence off. Not making any explanations for her actions: that was the key, probably. As long as she stuck to pure, unmistakable physical facts, there wasn't anything for the truth serum to work with. If she kept to topics like that, they could weather the rest of the conversation, and she could finish the night without incident.

Except…

A whole lot had been spilled thanks to the truth serum, and she hadn't been the only one revealing things. Some of Reimu's confessions had dug down into her mind and were making their presence very hard to ignore. If she left right now, she'd spend the next month wondering about them. But, if she wanted some clarification, she was never going to have a better chance...

"So, uh..." She popped a dango into her mouth as she spoke, both buying herself a few seconds to make damn certain that she wanted to say what came next, and helping her feign a casual air. "Did you really mean it when you said you were lonely?"

"Truth serum, remember?"

"Yeah, just. I never really thought of you as the kinda person who could get lonely and stuff."

"I don't think people like that exist. Even an oni will start looking for friends if they're alone long enough. … that's what made Suika such a pain that one time."

"Suika's weird, though. Personality-wise, she's like half an oni, tops."

"You get my point."

"Uh-huh. Still, that's kinda flatterin', when I think about it." Marisa leaned in, poking at Reimu's cheek. "Guess that means even the big tough Hakurei shrine maiden has a soft spot for me, huh?"

Reimu shied back from the poke and huffed. She pursed her lips, stalwartly refusing to open her mouth and let the truth serum have its way.

"Aw, c'mon, you won't even say a little?" Marisa teased.

Reimu kept her lips sealed. Her cheeks reddened a bit—whether it was from embarrassment or the effort of holding her tongue, Marisa wasn't sure.

"One little word...?"

Reimu's lips twinged.

It was her downfall. "Of course I like you! I miss you, and I get worried when you don't come to visit for a few days, and sometimes I just want to pull you into my bedroom and _be together_, but... Saying it wouldn't... feel right, because you don't deserve to have to live in a creaky shrine and deal with youkai nonsense for the rest of your life."

The words sort of tumbled out of her mouth, each one faster than the other, like snowflakes in an avalanche.

Marisa froze. Her cheeks were burning. "E-eh?"

Reimu averted her eyes, looking self-conscious even with half her face covered by a hand. Reluctantly, she parted her fingers for long enough to mumble, "You next."

"Are we takin' turns now...?"

"It isn't fair if I'm the only one," Reimu said, lowering her hand and still avoiding Marisa's gaze.

"Fine. Uh." Marisa stopped to consider what to say in response, then realized that was a waste of time. The potion didn't exactly seem picky about making her choose her words. She still had to say _something_, though, so she tried her usual glib dismissal: _I mean, yeah, it's only natural to feel like that. I mean, have you seen how cute I am?_

Instead she blurted out, "I mean, this whole Hakurei shrine maiden deal's so unfair to you that it isn't even funny, but that just means it'd be better if you had somebody to help you. Except, I try to hold back, because you're... you're _you_, and I'm... I'm never quite sure I'm good enough for it. Nobody is, maybe."

Reimu looked up now, holding Marisa's gaze. Almost defiantly, she replied, "I used to be really worried that you'd get killed by a youkai some day, so that time I picked a fight with you during the Eternal Night incident, I was trying to beat you up so hard that you'd rethink being a youkai hunter. Not... even Yukari knows."

"There's this magic-focusin' meditation where you're supposed to concentrate on where you wanna be in twenty years, and I always screw it up because it feels like the answer oughta be 'cuddling in bed with Reimu' or something and I get real sad!" Marisa retaliated.

"I've had daydreams about you saying things like this since we were fourteen!"

"I've still got this drawing I did of us holdin' hands in wedding dresses when I was _thirteen_!"

Marisa realized, now, that they'd both been leaning in the whole time, like the force of all these revelations was battering them down. Their faces were mere centimeters apart. They were both breathless, and doubtlessly very, very red.

They stared into each other's eyes for a few seconds.

With a soft sigh to steady her breath, Marisa rested a hand on Reimu's burning red cheek and leaned in for a slow, tender kiss.

There were tears in both their eyes when she pulled back. At least, she was pretty sure. It was kind of hard to make out Reimu's face through the blur. Tears and whatnot, after all. She sniffled and forced a chuckle. "If all our moon-viewin' parties are gonna be like this, we've really gotta start doin' it more often."


	3. Patchouli

The flight home was fast and frantic. Marisa was sure that she was being followed, could swear that she'd caught the glint of daggers behind her. She stayed low to the trees, darting beneath their canopies when she felt the need for stealth. She swooped in a long arc around her house, both trying to mislead any pursuit and giving her a chance to make sure nobody was waiting for her before she landed.

When she finally stepped inside, she cackled with delight.

"This is gonna be _great_!" Overflowing with giddy energy, she thrust her new acquisition into the air.

It was a book. Nobody, though, not even the most illiterate villager, would mistake it for a mere normal book. The cover was firm yet incredibly smooth, like frozen silk, and to anybody with an eye for magic, it practically thrummed with power. There were a few gold-lettered words on the spine, in some arcane language she'd never even seen.

Which, okay, yeah, meant that she wasn't sure what the book was about. But it had been sitting on a pedestal in the library, and it looked like this. It had to be something incredibly valuable. The secrets of immortality, or the most powerful spells known to man, or the key to making the Philosopher's Stone.

Especially since it had the most intimidating lock she'd ever seen. It wasn't rare for arcane tomes or youma books to have seals or locks on them, protecting their contents from the foolish or unwary. She'd seen plenty of those. This, though, was in a class of its own. The locking mechanism was the size of her hand and a bit thicker to boot. It was covered in gold filigree. … she'd already tried to pry it open with a knife, and it had zapped her in response. That was good, though. It meant this thing was the _real deal_.

Looking at it again just reminded her how good a catch this thing was. She grinned and spun around, clasping it to her chest as she walked toward her workshop.

"Once I get you open, you can go back to Patchy, okay?" she promised the book. "She can't complain too much if I do that, right? I'd be a pretty sorry magician if I _didn't_ go for something like this."

Slowly, carefully, she cleared a spot on her desk and lowered the book into place, like it might explode if she didn't give it proper reverence. … which, really, for all she knew, it might. Thankfully, the book held its wrath for the moment. Marisa slid into her chair and grabbed a magnifying glass.

Whoever had made the lock, the craftsmanship was, unsurprisingly, pretty good. It was made out of a few layers, which fit together so seamlessly that she didn't even notice them until her third pass. The spot where it touched the book was almost as seamless, and she couldn't even guess what held it in position. And on the front...

On the front were three circular indents, each about the size of a coin. Each had a pair of little symbols printed inside, in another unidentified script.

"Some kinda puzzle lock, huh? Like, I have to guess the right password or something?"

Marisa poked her finger into one of the indents. Nothing happened. She tried a few more, tapping out an aimless rhythm on them. Nothing happened. She tried pressing her thumb into it, in case it wanted a thumbprint. Nothing.

"Hmm..."

She patted along the desk until she found a scrap piece of paper—already covered in cramped notes written from a variety of angles, a few small stains, and one scorch mark. Squinting through the magnifying glass, she sketched out the unfamiliar characters from the indents. Once she was done, she checked them against the originals, then leaned over to leaf through a bookshelf's contents, looking for a book on runes that she vaguely remembered owning.

It was time to get to work.

* * *

And, then, sunlight was falling across her face.

Marisa jolted awake, as her slowly-awakening mind realized that things were very wrong. The sun was up, for one. Her back hurt in half a dozen places. That one was easy to explain: She was laying on the floor, after all.

Squinting and groaning, she pushed herself up and glanced at the clock. It was, apparently, eleven AM.

She cast a bleary gaze around the room. She was surrounded by books, most of them propped open by other books, shiny rocks, and whatever else had been handy. The hours of study before she'd passed out were trickling back into her memories. She'd recognized one of the symbols from a particularly old spell for preserving food. Trying to find more on it had led, unfortunately, to history books, and somewhere in there she'd ended up reading transcriptions of old pottery fragments...

There was a long-cooled cup of tea sitting next to her. She looked at it with distaste, a bit annoyed at herself for what she was even considering, but... caffeine sounded good right now, and if she got up for breakfast, she was going to lose valuable research time. She downed the cold tea in one long, distasteful slurp, while her other hand grabbed her page of notes.

Her notes were cryptic, and had only gotten more so as the night progressed. At the very bottom, though, in scrawled writing of the sort that only happened late at night, while drunk, or both, she had written:

_'its high mythic ayodhyan!_

_1: Water and Sky Mirror __(?) (ok that means __Moon__)_

_2: Wood and Earth (? 'the foundation that sleeps' or smth on p 519, p sure that means earth, check w that other book)_

_3: Metal and Sun'_

She could... vaguely remember writing some of that. Probably best to take her own word for it rather than retread six hours of research. It made sense, anyway. Elemental magic was Patchouli's specialty, and dual-elemental spells were hard enough to master that few other magicians bothered. If the lock needed those, Patchouli was the only one in Gensokyo who could easily open it.

"No fire, though. Figures."

With a sigh, Marisa raised a hand and focused on a fingertip, drawing on half-forgotten techniques. The alien sensation of unfamiliar energy percolated through her body, jittering about in uncontrolled spurts. Focusing even more, she was able to coax it forward, sharpening it into a single point...

A burst of pure moonlight sputtered out of her fingertip, with a near-total absence of any moon-like grace or beauty. It sort of looked like what would happen if flashlights could sneeze.

But, small though it was, she _could_ perform a moon spell.

If she could just combine it with water, she was in business.

* * *

It took five hours.

Making a spell that combined Moon and Water elements didn't take long. She'd already figured out the Moon part, and Water magic always came weirdly easy to her. When the time came to cast it, the energy sputtered at the tip of her finger, sparks of pure elemental energy arcing off to ground themselves in nearby objects. Slowly, it built up. A short, gleaming burst, like mercury, splattered against the seal. The drops lingered for just a moment, sizzling as they melted away into silver mist.

The seal glowed, and a little _click_ came from within the lock. One down.

Wood and Earth were a little harder. Neither were elements she'd used at all, but she liked to think she _understood_ them. It was still a long process to combine them into a single spell, and it wasn't a very impressive spell, either. A shotgun burst of pebbles and tiny clods of dirt shot out, pinging harmlessly off of the lock. Where they landed, delicate green vines started coiling out of them.

The second seal glowed, and another _click_ came from within.

Sun and Metal was harder than the other two combined. She was an expert at Fire magic, of course, but thinking her way toward Sun from that direction turned out to be difficult. Elemental forces of the Sun were all about activity and life-giving, but a fire could totally do that too. After about an hour and a half of reading philosophical treatises on the differences between the two, she gave up and focused on just trying to brute force it. A hundred subtle variants of fire and plasma erupted from her fingers before she pulled it off for the first time. Figuring out Metal took another hour.

Combining the two, cast toward the lock, was a long, painful, and difficult process. Like trying to pull out a tooth with her bare hands. She squinted and grit her teeth in frustration. The energy kept bubbling forward, then dissipating before she could use it. Bit by bit, she coaxed it out. A little white-hot core of plasma, flecked with glistening metal, shot out. The heat was enough to make her flinch backward as it splattered against the lock. Drops of molten metal landed on her desk, sending up little streamers of smoke.

The final seal glowed. The lock clicked, and subtly shifted in place.

"Hah! Alright! Really, Patchy, you shoulda known this kinda thing would barely slow down a real magician like me. Next time, maybe you'll—"

Marisa tried to tug the book open, but the lock was still clamped solidly in place. She'd seen before that it had a few layers, stacked on top of each other. And only the first layer, with the seals on it, was loose now.

Already dreading what she was going to find, she grabbed the top plate and gave it a tug. It slid back, revealing a few thin posts that had held it in place.

There was another mechanism on the next layer of the lock. A series of delicate, concentric metal rings, all folded flat into a shallow indent. As soon as they were bared, they rose into the air, supported by a tiny lever from below. There was one big, outer ring, with a gleaming white bead on it. Within, at a different angle, a smaller ring held a blue bead. In the center was a larger yellow one, perfectly round and glowing like a candle flame.

The air flickered. An illusion popped up in the middle of the mechanism, thin red lines linking some of the beads together and extending along their various axes. Smaller numbers showed the measurements of some of the angles.

Marisa stared for a few seconds, then groaned. "Well. Fuck me."

* * *

Research on an empty stomach wasn't going to get her anywhere. Before spending another second looking at the thing, Marisa paused to cook a meal.

She didn't feel like she had the time to make something lavish either, though. Instead, she went the brute force option: a hefty salamander she'd been keeping around in a terrarium for just such an occasion, stuffed with greens and (very carefully pitted) yew berries. Butchering a salamander was an art that couldn't be rushed unless you had a taste for toxic mucus. Once it was ready, though, she could throw it in the oven and come back a few hours later for dinner. The leftovers would keep her fed for a few days.

Hopefully she wouldn't need all that time. A book like this had to be valuable to Patchouli. Any moment now, a representative from the mansion could come knocking on her door. If she were smart, she'd just take the book to Reimu and see if her cheaty sealing powers could blow the lock open…

But it was a challenge now, and Marisa Kirisame never backed down from a challenge.

Once dinner was in the oven, she settled in to inspect the new lock.

Three hours later, she was sure of two things.

First, it was an armillary sphere. Of sorts, at least. The yellow bead in the center was obviously the sun, and the blue bead was the Earth. The tiny white bead, though, was a mystery. Presumably, finding it was the goal.

Secondly, the angles weren't enough to locate whatever it was. At least, not directly. There were enough measurements to confirm that the position and tilt of the Earth roughly matched the current season, with a mere two hours of work. There was even a little spot on the Earth that was presumably Gensokyo, with a measurement of its angle to the solar terminator line. Since the Earth bead wasn't spinning, that presumably meant it was displaying a fixed time of day. She had the angles to find the target from the sun, and if it was outside the solar system, the angle would pretty much identical from the Earth, but she'd still need to figure out how that translated to viewing it from Gensokyo...

After another four hours, Marisa had decided that astronomy was bullshit. She'd read entirely too much about terms like 'obliquity.' She'd built another nest of books, and half of them weren't even about stars, but math and stuff. She'd do twenty minutes of math to figure out a single measurement, then check it against astronomy books to figure out what it even meant, then use that to start deducing _another_ measurement...

She'd found it, though. The little armillary sphere was displaying a time around 3:30 AM, and whatever she was looking for, it would be at 121.8°, 70.2° in the night sky.

She glanced at the clock. It was a bit after 2 AM now. Lucky her. Enough time for a snack and a quick bath.

* * *

At 3:20 AM, Marisa dragged one of her telescopes into the yard.

She double-checked her calculated coordinates and pointed it at the right area of sky, but didn't dare to look through it just yet. Logically, ten minutes wasn't a lot of time when it came to astronomy. Whatever she was looking for, it would already be pretty close to that spot. But, there was magic in play here, so it was best to be safe. Who knew if this would even work if she did it at the wrong time, anyway.

So, she busied herself for ten minutes instead. She laid out a few star charts, but superstitiously avoided consulting them for the moment. She laid the book nearby, and eyed the armillary sphere for any changes.

When the moment came, she very carefully adjusted the telescope to the right coordinates and, after taking a deep breath, looked through the lens.

She could see a few stars, but one was smack-dab in the center.

After watching it for about ten seconds, she pulled back and looked to the book. "So, uh, what now?"

She really wasn't sure what the book might want. Well... she had one idea, but it felt very silly. Still, wasn't like anybody would see. She lifted the book up and held it to the telescope's eyepiece. "See? There's your star, right there."

The book, perhaps not surprisingly, didn't respond. Feeling a bit silly, she lowered it.

This was starting to worry her. If the book depended on this specific window of time, who knew how long she'd be waiting to open it again? If she was lucky, it could still be a whole day before she got another shot. If she was _unlucky_...

Best not to think about that, really. Try something else. She held the book overhead, pointed toward the star. Nothing happened.

"Uh."

She gave the armillary sphere a poke. The outer ring wobbled, then adjusted back to its normal position.

"C'mon, you've gotta give me something to work with here!"

With her free hand, she snatched up a star chart, glancing from it to the sky as she compared the two. "So that thing below it is Taurus, which means that cluster up here is the Pleiades... which means that this star is, uh... Alcyone? What's that supposed to mean, though? What's so special about Alcyone?"

In response, a _click_ came from the lock. The little armillary sphere collapsed down into its indent again.

Marisa stared for a moment. "All I had to do was say it? I could've just shouted a hundred star names and—okay, whatever. Let's see what you've got for me!"

She scooped the book up and tugged on the lock. The base was still secured to the book. Another layer pulled off, though.

Revealing another indent, with another symbol inside.

"Oh, come _ON_!"

The lock wasn't sympathetic to her protests, though. After waiting for another few seconds, dejected and tired, she sighed. "... I'll take a look in the mornin'."

* * *

The symbol, which she hadn't quite been able to make out in the moonlight, was the alchemical symbol for aqua regia.

She scowled at it all throughout breakfast. She'd had the book for a day and a half. The fact that nobody from the mansion had shown up to take it back was growing increasingly strange. Any moment now, Sakuya or Patchouli could bust down her door. Part of her was wondering if she shouldn't just go back on her earlier resolution and take it to Reimu.

The thing was, she knew _how_ to make aqua regia. In theory, at least. Alchemy was known to use it here and there. But, where potion-making was mostly a matter of getting your hands on the right ingredients, making aqua regia was rather more... _involved_. It didn't just need rare ingredients, but also needed time and the right techniques. It was about as involved as making any of her explosives, except she didn't have the materials on hand and had never made it before.

Oh, and it was a notoriously cantankerous mixture that heated up just from _existing_ and emitted corrosive fumes, but that was practically an afterthought at this point.

She was going to do it though, she realized. She'd come too far to back out. Plus, the remaining lock was pretty thin. This _had_ to be the last layer. One last hurdle, and the secrets of immortality or extraplanar travel or _whatever_ was in this stupid book would be hers.

* * *

Whoever had come up with aqua regia, they'd done a piss-poor job at making it accessible to witches living in fantasy realms in rural Japan.

It was made of two component acids, aqua fortis and muriatic acid.

Each of which she would need to make out of other chemicals.

Some of which she would need to make out of _other_ chemicals.

It took her a few hours to figure out how to make both acids with ingredients she was actually confident she could find. Around noon, she set out to Genbu Ravine with a shopping list. An hour or so later, she flew home, about a thousand yen poorer and with a basket containing a dried wad of niter, a chunk of copper, and a bottle of vitriol. The latter was carefully sealed and wrapped in a few layers of cloth, and she was still a bit uneasy about flying with it. Explosives, explosives were one thing. They were dangerous, but as long as you kept them away from fire, plenty of them were well-behaved. Vitriol, on the other hand, didn't care about the circumstances, and would eat your skin if you let it.

She was just glad the kappa had a supply of it, for whatever reason. Making her own would have taken days longer and involved hunting for some very particular minerals in the underworld.

Getting the materials was the easy part, though. Making the final product was going to be harder.

She opened every window in her workshop, tied a handkerchief over her mouth and nose, and put on a pair of gloves. She still treated the vitriol with the respect it was due, and flinched the one time she spilled a few drops. She just had to pour it over salt, pipe the resulting fumes through water, and she had her muriatic acid. As a bonus, by comparison, it was dilute enough that she probably wouldn't lose half the skin on a finger if she fumbled the container.

The aqua fortis was even less dangerous, but it got its revenge by being a giant pain to make. It wanted some of her muriatic acid. And it took an hour. And it made an even weaker acid, that she needed to distill further before she was satisfied that it would work. Which took another two hours. And once it was strong enough, fumes were a concern. Marisa wasn't sure how dangerous the fumes were, but she wasn't going to take her chances. That kind of thing was a good way to end up like Patchouli. She sat on the far end of the room, using a paper fan to urge the fumes toward the open window.

Once she was satisfied that both acids were complete, she brought the book in, held her breath, and combined them.

The resulting aqua regia wasn't much to look at, really. Kind of orange-reddish. It was hot, which was concerning. There were fumes. This stuff was _angry_.

Best to get this over with so she could dispose of it, then.

Carefully, she sucked some of it up in a dropper. She lined the tip up with the little indent on the lock, and gave the bulb a slow, measured squeeze. A single drop fell onto the lock. Whatever the lock was, the acid reacted, sizzling.

And sizzling.

And sizzling.

Marisa stared at it, antsy. If this failed, she might have to flip the desk. And just how long could one drop react for, anyway?

The sizzling slowly died down, a few final bubbles rising to the top.

The lock clicked.

"Yeah!"

Her earlier caution was immediately forgotten. She pushed the flask of acid aside and yanked off her glove. The only precaution she took was tossing a dash of baking soda onto the lock to neutralize the acid. As soon as it stopped reacting, she yanked on the lock.

The whole thing came this time, leaving the book's cover bare. She'd done it. Whatever secrets it held were finally hers for the taking.

She took just a moment to enjoy the sight, grinning. Then with reverent care, she pulled the cover open. The spine was still stiff from disuse, crackling in protest. Grabbing a small stack of pages, she flipped the book open to its middle so she could sample the contents.

The page was blank. Both pages, really. _Blank_ blank, without a drop of ink or a marking of any sort.

"Uhh..."

She flipped through a few pages. All blank. Her mind was already racing. Could this be another test? There were lots of ways to make nearly-invisible ink, or hide words so they were only visible under a full moon or something. Or the pages might have to be exposed to heat, or the right chemical. There were lots of options, and sorting through them all would—

Before she could think any further, the air near the center of the book shimmered.

A phantasmal noise emanated from within: "FWEEEEEE!" … it sounded like a festive little kazoo.

Multicolored confetti burst up out of the book and rained across the room. As it started pattering onto the desk around her, Marisa could only stare in slowly-mounting disbelief.

* * *

Marisa's return to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, two days after her grand theft, had none of the triumphant energy of her previous visit.

She walked in the front gate. Meiling silently opened it for her. Marisa was pretty sure that she spotted Meiling wincing out of the corner of her eye.

Nobody impeded her progress through the mansion. The few fairy maids she encountered all stepped politely aside, like they'd been told not to interfere.

The library's doors creaked open. For once, she didn't worry that the sound might draw attention.

She found Patchouli sitting at her desk, deep in a book. Patchouli didn't look up as she approached, even when she dropped the now-unlocked book on the desk with a heavy _thump_.

But, a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Did you enjoy your reading?" she asked, without looking up from her book.

"Yeah, real insightful stuff."

"Mmh." Patchouli flipped a page. "I'm surprised, I'll admit. I thought it would take longer. The astronomy lock didn't give you much trouble, then?"

"I mean. It was a pain, but mostly it's just figurin' out a lot of angles."

"And the aqua regia?"

"Annoying and kinda expensive. Not gonna complain if you wanna refund my money, by the way."

Patchouli ignored her. "The elemental lock."

"Was one of the easiest ones and it still took me half a day." With a sigh, Marisa slumped down, flopping face-first against the table. "I'll admit it, okay? You got me good. I really thought I'd stolen the secret of immortality or something."

A few seconds passed in silence.

Patchouli pressed her lips to Marisa's forehead in a soft, brief kiss. "You did well."

"H-huh?"

By the time she looked up, Patchouli was already back in her seat, with her book sitting to the side. "Do you really think I'd make such a complicated lock just to tease you?"

"Kinda, yeah."

"It was a test, Marisa. A test that you completed two days earlier than I'd expected."

"Oh." It took a moment for Marisa to really grip what she was being told. "... guess that'll teach you to underestimate me, huh? You really oughta know by now that I'm—"

"Reckless, lacking regard for the property of others, and prone to working yourself to exhaustion, if you did all of that in two days," Patchouli finished for her. "But a promising magician nonetheless. I can see that I've been wrong to treat you solely as an annoyance. You may be inexperienced, but you are my equal in potential."

"Oh." Marisa was, she realized, still flushing. "Uh. Okay."

Patchouli reached across the table. She was smiling. Patchouli _never_ smiled. "Please make yourself comfortable, Marisa," she said, taking Marisa's hand. "There are several things that I'd like to discuss with you."


	4. Nitori

"Marisa! Hey, Marisa!"

Nitori's voice echoed down the hallway, filling most of the cottage.

It was rare enough for Marisa to have visitors. For that visitor to be Nitori, unsocial at the best of times, was outright bizarre. She shouted, "Gimme a sec!" through the door to her workshop, hurrying to get her experiment for the day into a state where she could leave it alone for a few minutes.

With that done she stepped out into the hall, wiping her hands clean on her apron. Nitori was standing right there, barely a meter away, looking expectant. Marisa eyed her. "What's up? Kinda weird for you to just show yourself in, isn't it?"

"Eh? This place is a shop, isn't it?"

"Oh." Technically, yes, Marisa's house was a shop. She hadn't had a customer in three and a half years, though. At least, not the sort of customer who walked in and asked for services. In practice, she was in the business of tracking down frightened villagers and selling them on the Kirisame Magic Shop's 'extermination in three days or less or your money back' youkai-busting plan. "Yep! Welcome to the Kirisame Magic Shop n' all. What's up?"

Nitori hesitated, fretting with the straps of her backpack. "I want to... hire you for something."

"Uh. 'kay. Kinda weird for a youkai to request a youkai extermination, but—"

"Not that! … you steal things sometimes, right?"

"Hey, whoa. 'Steal' is a pretty harsh word, y'know?"

Nitori ignored her protests and leaned in, glancing back toward the doorway like she was afraid that they might be spied upon at any moment. "I want you to help me steal something, okay?!"

"Oh. I mean, it depends on what the thing is, but..."

"It's nothing bad! It's a super-powerful artifact. And the ones who have it are the yamawaro, so it isn't like you'd be stealing from humans or anything."

"Yamawaro? Those, like, mountain kappa? I thought they all went back to the river after the drought ended."

"Most of them did. So the ones who stayed on the mountain are real weirdos."

Marisa frowned at Nitori. Frowned _down_ at her—a rare opportunity, given her height. Everything about this situation felt suspicious. On the other hand, stealing from youkai was _basically_ a victimless crime. "... are you gonna tell me what this thing is? I've gotta know what it looks like to steal it, y'know."

"I'm not sure, myself. I'll know it when I see it. But, leaving it with the yamawaro will upset the balance of power, so that just makes more trouble for you in the long run. If you look at it like that, I'm kind of doing you a favor, right?" Nitori leaned in, an ingratiating smile on her face. "So how about a steep discount? We're good friends, right?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself." Marisa sighed, snagging the mini-hakkero from its spot by the door. "Why don't you start by showin' me where this thing's at?"

* * *

The location, perhaps not surprisingly, turned out to be on Youkai Mountain. It was in a stretch of mountainside Marisa had never paid any attention to, a rumpled area of valleys and ridges too high to be called part of Genbu Ravine, but low enough to avoid tengu attention. There, nestled in between ridges and hidden from the air by trees, stood a small yamawaro compound. It was a plain-looking building of cement and metal, with barely even any windows.

There was a barbed wire fence around it, with a bored-looking guard standing out front.

Marisa spent a few minutes scouting before she made a decision. "I don't think sneakin' in from behind is gonna work. … hey, is that bag of yours pretty roomy?"

"Eh? I mean, I guess."

"... think you could fit inside?"

Nitori stared back at her. "Er. Probably. Why does it matter?"

"These guys probably recognize you, right? Swap outfits with me and hop into the bag."

Nitori reddened. "W-what?!"

"You hired me 'cuz I'm the one with experience at stealing things, right? So, trust me, it's part of gettin' inside."

Nitori held her ground for a few more seconds, then relented, grumbling.

The clothes swap was a long and awkward affair. The two stood back-to-back as they stripped down to their undies in the middle of the forest, then patted the ground to find each other's discarded clothes and put them on.

"What, why's there a button inside your sleeve?"

"That's my cloaking device! Don't touch it!"

"... lots of stuff in your pockets, too..."

"You're really one to talk, aren't you? I just found a rock in one of yours."

"That's a lucky rock! Put it back where you found it!"

"Eh? What's so lucky about a rock?"

"It was on the moon, and it got burnt by this big laser shot by a goddess or something. That's gotta be lucky, right?"

"Whatever." Nitori stepped into view, now wearing Marisa's outfit. The hat drooped down crookedly on her head, battling her pigtails for dominance. "Do I really have to get in the bag?"

Marisa was already holding it open. "Yelp. Don't worry, it'll take ten minutes, tops."

"Fiiiiine."

Nitori crouched down and eased herself into the backpack, crawling the last leg of the journey. The bag wasn't massive, but it was roomy enough for her to curl up inside, her knees clasped to her chest. She scowled out at Marisa until the closing zipper obscured her face.

Once it was closed, Marisa grabbed the straps, readied herself, and hefted it up.

… then wobbled and immediately fell again, with a catastrophic clatter of junk and a soft, "Hey!" from Nitori.

"Shoulda figured that wouldn't work. Heavier than you look. Okay, hold on tight. I'm gonna drag it."

After adjusting the kappa cap on her head, Marisa grabbed each strap, leaned forward, and started dragging the bag along behind her.

It was slower progress than she'd anticipated. They'd only been just out of sight of the yamawaro compound, but the trip there was mostly uphill, and the ground was just rough enough to slow things further. When she came into sight, the guard posted out front stared at her. Her staring only grew more incredulous as Marisa laboriously dragged the bag toward her, meter by meter.

"Alright, alright!" the guard finally shouted. "That's close enough." She raised her musket, sort of uncertainly, like she couldn't decide whether it was even worth making the threat after watching Marisa creep toward the gate for three minutes. "What are you doing here?"

"Ain't it obvious?" Marisa released a strap and gestured down toward her outfit. "I'm the new girl."

"... eh?"

"I got tired of bein' a kappa. Here to defect. You yamawaro have a good thing goin' on up here, the way I see it. What with the nice view, and, uh..." Marisa glanced around and tried to think of more positive aspects of mountains. "... always a rock around when you need one. Plus, water? Way overrated."

The guard did not look convinced. "How do I know you aren't a spy?"

"Well, see, I brought this bag full of stuff to share with everyone." Marisa gave it a hearty slap, then tugged the zipper open, just far enough to stick her hand inside. "It's full of some pretty high-tech stuff, like..."

Inside the bag, she wiggled her fingers expectantly. There was no response from Nitori. "Some real cool stuff!" she repeated, louder, giving Nitori a prod.

Nitori finally took the hint. Something slapped into Marisa's palm, and she pulled it out.

It was some kind of outside world gadget, made out of plastic. Most of its bulk was a handle, with a trigger near the top. Above it was a fist-sized protrusion with a little window on front, revealing some mechanical bits within. She'd only seen a gadget with a trigger a few times, and it was that strange gun Sumireko carried around. Best to be careful.

"… like… this thing." She pointed it aside, into the air, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. She pulled the trigger a few more times.

"Uh." She pointed it at the guard's chest. This time, she could see the result—something behind the window glowed, and a grid of red lasers criss-crossed the section of the uniform right in front of it.

The yamawaro's lips crumpled in an indecisive frown. She tilted her head around, inspecting the gadget from different angles. "Seems pretty weak for a laser gun, but I guess that isn't too bad. Take all that stuff inside and get somebody to sort through it. And, uh. Welcome to the mountain, sister! We run a pretty tight ship up here, but as long as you pull your weight, everything is fine."

"Uh-huh." Marisa was already straining to pull the bag through the gate. "Glad to be here."

* * *

Nitori coughed and gasped for air as soon as she was out of the bag. "Did you really have to take so long?!"

"I mean. You're kinda heavy."

"This thing is waterproof, which means it's _basically_ airtight too."

"Sorry. … what's with all the security, though?"

"The yamawaro are like that. The water is a kappa's natural defense, y'know? Whatever happens, we can run away and hide there. These girls don't have that going for them, so…"

"So instead they've got a big fence and lots of guns?"

"Basically. Anyway, we can—"

The sound of distant footsteps cut Nitori off. They both froze, going silent. As the footsteps drew closer, they slipped over and flattened themselves against a wall.

Whoever had been approaching stopped, like they were listening for movement. After a few seconds, they proceeded. They walked past a nearby doorway, and Marisa didn't dare to peek through it for any longer than necessary, but she caught the glint of a musket barrel. So there were guards _inside_ too.

She held a finger to her lips, cautioning Nitori to be quiet, then eased herself into the doorway. It opened into an intersection, with one hallway running left to right, and another stretching out in front of her. The guard's back was to the door, and she was clearly trying to figure out if anybody was around, staying still and peering down the hallways. Probably best to act quickly, then. Marisa focused on a spot down the hall to the right, struggling to remember the particulars of a spell she hadn't used in month. Mouthing an incantation, she moved her fingers through a few key motions.

It worked. Far down the hall, a ball of sizzling light appeared on the ground. It crackled and popped like a string of firecrackers, showering the area in a steady stream of sparks. The force launched it into the air, ricocheting from wall to wall and leaving scorch marks wherever it impacted.

The guard froze in surprise. "W-what the heck?!" After frantically glancing around for whatever had caused this disturbance in the first place, she ran off to investigate the light-ball.

As soon as she was a few meters away, Marisa grabbed Nitori's hand, yanked her through the doorway, and took off down the hall in front of them. The miniature fireworks display drowned out the sound of their footsteps.

* * *

Exploring the yamawaro facility was a slow and laborious process, complicated by the fact that even Nitori wasn't sure what they were looking for. Every few minutes, they had to sneak past a guard or a group of pedestrians. The guards just seemed to get more frequent, presumably because all the flashy shows of magic, while good distractions, were still pretty damn suspicious. They snuck into a dozen different rooms and found storage areas, assembly lines, hydroponic cucumber farms, armories, and living quarters, but no sign of Nitori's artifact.

Door number thirteen revealed what looked like another assembly line.

On the near end of the room was a pile of boxes. Some of them were clearly from the outside world, brightly-colored and still glistening under a thin layer of plastic. A few were open, revealing clear cylinders filled with stacks of thin, metallic discs. Other, clearly kappa- or yamawaro-made, boxes were stacked on the far end of the room, ready for sale. On a workbench in the middle of the room was an outside world device of some sort: A black box about half the size of a pumpkin, with a few buttons and small displays.

Nitori paused inside the doorway. Then, she rushed over and excitedly inspected the thing. "This is it! It has to be!"

"Is it? How do you know?"

Nitori shrugged her backpack off and undid the zipper, then started packing the device up for transport. She shoveled in a few of the cylinders full of discs for good measure. "I'll explain later, okay? I'm confident this is what we're looking for, though."

"What's supposed to be so dangerous about that thing?"

"Well, er. I didn't say it was _dangerous_, exactly..."

A firm, metallic _click_ from the doorway announced that they weren't alone.

Marisa looked up. A yamawaro stood there, looking quite satisfied with herself as she leveled her musket at the pair of them. "I _knew_ there were intruders! Put your hands on the ground, both of you, or I'll—"

Marisa snapped her hands up. With no time to think, she couldn't be choosy or elegant with her spells. A blast of rainbow stars exploded outward, with enough force that the recoil almost knocked her over. The yamawaro staggered back with a squeal of surprise. Her musket discharged like a thunderclap, blasting a hole in the ceiling.

The second that the spell tapered off, Marisa lunged over, shoved the artifact from a still-stunned Nitori's hands into the bag, and yanked on her wrist. "C'mon, run!"

Fortunately, there was another door on the far side of the room. Marisa barely even slowed down for long enough to shove it open. Behind them, she could hear the yamawaro scrambling into pursuit. "H-hey, get back here!"

They were going at a full sprint already, fast enough that Marisa had to keep a hand on Nitori's wrist to tug her through a tight turn without the backpack toppling her over. Its cargo jangled and clattered with every step, practically serving as a homing beacon to their pursuer. Another bullet ricocheted off the wall behind them.

They turned another corner, sprinted through a side room, and arced in a long u-turn around a series of intersections, but the yamawaro wasn't deterred. As Marisa skidded around the last corner, she plowed into another guard. The guard stumbled back, jabbed the butt of a musket into her ribs in retaliation, and squealed, "Intruders! There's intruders!"

Now there were _two_ sets of footsteps behind them.

Marisa reached for a pocket, only to find nothing there. She was still wearing Nitori's dress. "H-hey!" she shouted back. "Get that flask outta the right pocket, the one behind the apron!"

"Is this really the time?!" Nitori shouted back.

"Trust me! Just toss the flask back at 'em!"

Nitori didn't say anything in response, but a quick glance back found her rooting around in the pocket. After a few seconds of searching, she found the flask in question and tossed it back over her shoulder. It impacted the floor with a _tink_ of splintering glass. And, then, an explosion that rumbled down the hallway and sent a wave of hot air rushing past them.

The guards behind them staggered to a stop, coughing. Another bullet flew by, this one whizzing so close that it would've taken off her witch hat if she were wearing it.

"Alright! Now that we've got a breather…"

After rounding a corner, Marisa skidded to a stop and whipped the mini-hakkero up, pointed at the wall. She jammed the fuel flow up to maximum and gritted her teeth. The air around them roiled as enough magical energy to level a thicket focused into a single point.

"Hey, uh." Nitori took an uneasy step back. "Is this safe, or…?"

_FWOOM._

The laser that erupted from the mini-hakkero was taller than Marisa was. The force shoved her backward, but she braced herself, pushing right back against it. The wall in front of them burst outward like a popping balloon. Sunlight and cool outdoor air poured in through the hole. Bricks flew into the air with the ease of a child flicking marbles. Some of them landed a few hundred meters away, tumbling down the hillside.

"C'mon!" Marisa could already hear hurried footsteps rushing toward them from all directions. In retrospect, explosions probably weren't the best way to avoid drawing attention. "Don't think we can rest just yet."

* * *

Fortunately, even yamawaro didn't seem inclined to journey too far from their compound without preparation. A few chased them down the hillside, and the occasional bullet ricocheted off the rocks around them. By the time they passed into the forest around Genbu Ravine, Marisa couldn't see any pursuit behind them. She still didn't dare to slow down for another few minutes.

Even then, she kept an uneasy eye turned toward the hillside behind them as she came to a stop. "S-so," she said, wheezing for air and leaning against a tree for support. "I really hope that thing was worth it."

"Yeah. Y-yeah. Uh." Nitori sounded just as winded. She slid her backpack off, and barely seemed to have the strength left to stop it from plummeting straight to the ground. After opening it, she fished the device out and sat it on the ground between them. "Let's see…"

They both leaned in, inspecting the device. Most of the buttons were labeled, all in a language she vaguely recognized as one of the European ones, and there was larger text on a panel on the front. She knew what the characters meant, but… "Shii… di… aaru. What the heck's a shidiaaru?"

"That's its name. Don't ask me what it means." Nitori traced her finger along a few buttons, mumbling to herself. After a few seconds of thought, she pressed one.

The device groaned indecisively, like the sound a human might make while protesting the need to get out of bed in the morning. From within a little slit on its front, one of those shiny discs popped out.

"Hah!" Nitori yanked the disc out and held it up, grinning. "Yep! This is definitely it."

Marisa stared at the disc. "Uh… so are ya gonna tell me what a shidiaaru _is_?"

"Heh." Nitori waggled the disc, a smug expression on her face. "Humans from the outside used to carry these things all the time. Most of them have music on them, so they're pretty valuable, but even us kappa could never figure out how to put music onto empty ones. Then, a lot of copies suddenly started turning up from the yamawaro, so it only made sense that they'd found some way to do it."

"... you told me this thing was an artifact that was gonna upset the balance of power 'n stuff."

"Eh? It is! Don't you get it? This is one-of-a-kind technology. If the yamawaro could mass-produce these discs, they'd be able to afford all the guns they want. And now that I have it..."

"You're gonna get rich?"

"Exactly! I'm going to make so much that _tengu_ will ask to work for me!" Nitori cackled with delight, hopping in place. Lunging forward, she grabbed the collar of Marisa's dress and tugged her down, pressing into a firm, but brief, kiss.

When Nitori pulled back, she looked both surprised and embarrassed at the outburst. It didn't last long. "... hey, don't look at me like that. Business is ruthless, y'know?"

Marisa sighed, rubbing at her cheek and trying not to think too deeply about the implications of that kiss. "Yeah, well, maybe it's got just enough charity left that I can get a cut of the profits?"

"Not a chance."

"It was worth a shot. … buy me dinner and a few drinks on the way back? A performance like that has to be worth a _bit_ of a bonus, right?"

Nitori looked up from packing the device back into her bag, considering. "Eh. Yeah, sure. Drinks're on me. We'll make a night out of it."


End file.
